Decisions, decisions. WWYD?

Bear with me, there's a lot of background........I apologise in advance.

I currently have two jobs. I shall call them Job A and Job B.

I work for two hospital trusts and I can't drive.

Job A is currently a zero hours contract on nights. Band 3 with night and weekend enhancements where applicable.

It's ten hour shifts, in an office, lone working - answering the phone to callers and performing admin tasks.

As the contract suggests, it's 'as and when required' - meaning it's been feast or famine as far as the number of shifts are concerned. The pay is good when I get work.

The job is about to change. Big. Time. New software controlling almost every aspect of hospital admin is about to come in, people are being trained up and the job I've just described is about to alter radically.

I've had this job since May this year, after an horrendous stint in another Band 3 role (also zero hours) and losing my Band 4 fixed term contract role in January.

Job B is a part time, evening, but permanent post for another hospital trust, a bus ride and a brisk walk from the other hospital.

It's Band 2, with no enhancements. That means, since I started the job in August, I get about £500 pcm.

That's enough to pay the bills (including mortgage interest) but I've had to rely on Job A to supplement my income.

So far, I've been able to run the two jobs together. Wake up at 2pm, get to work, start at 4pm, finish at 8pm in the first hospital, get out to the bus stop, catch a bus to the next town and briskly walk across the centre of town (passing Tesco on the way and seeing if there are any bargains) to get to the second hospital to start Job A at 10pm.

I then work a ten hour shift, get home from there asap, sleep for about 3-4 hours before getting up and doing it again. As Job A is not every night, it's been doable.

So far.

Job B is also about to change. I've been notified this week that they've had the go-ahead to increase my hours to 10pm every night from 2nd December.

Job A starts at 10pm. I've been given a few dates to put in my diary for shifts to cover various annual leave requests and I've applied for annual leave for those nights from Job B so that I can cover shifts in Job A. I've been granted most of them but the jury's still out on Christmas Eve.

Yes. I've agreed to work Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. Job A are paying for the taxi home. Hey, eight hours bank holiday pay? I'd be mad to pass that up.

NHS annual leave is calculated in hours. So instead of taking a day off, I'll be taking 6 hours off. As I work part time, my day is currently 4 hours long but after 2nd December it will be 6 hours long. So if I'm not granted the whole shift off, I just might be able to ask for two hours off, finish at 8pm so that I can get to work for 10pm.

I've received a 'phone call today, from my boss at Job A. Someone has resigned and I've been given first refusal before they advertise.

I've just worked the resignors' shifts as she was on annual leave for a while. It was very hard work.

Job A's substantive post averages out at about 25 hours per week. It's a rolling rota of two on, two off, three on, two off, two on, ten off.

By nature of the higher grade and the unsociable hours, even though Job A has fewer hours, it currently pays more than Job B. It will, more than likely, pay more than Job B even after Job B rises to 30 hours per week.

The people at both jobs are friendly. The work isn't too taxing and I've been muddling along up until now.

So this is the dilemma. What do I do?

It's been good up until now having the two jobs. I get bored easily and it's been a bit of variety. I keep different skills sets refreshed, I get to work in different environments and I have the benefits of working for different NHS employers - discounts and benefits vary from trust to trust.

Option 1. Keep both jobs.

It probably won't be possible to do this as it would require leaving Job B early every time I need to work a shift at Job A. Although it's technically possible to take my time off in 2 hour chunks at a time, that could mean 10 - 15 shifts disrupted a month.

Having just done a month of that (to cover one lady's annual leave) - I would spend my whole life permanently exhausted.

This would also mean that I would probably never have one full day off ever again.

Option 2. Resign from Job B and accept the offer of a permanent post at Job A.

I like the money, the job and the people. It's interesting, I have indirect contact with the people I help (or try to) and if I accept the job as permanent, then I get further training on different programs which would allow me to expand my skills that little bit further.

Downside - I've only really just started Job B. I feel I would be letting them down after all the hoops I've had to jump through to get it.


Option 3. Resign from Job A and just keep Job B. There may be just enough money to this.

However, Job B is fairly monotonous, the money isn't as good and, into my third month there, I'm not altogether happy with certain aspects of the way the place is run.

It's in a lab (:T) but as I don't have a degree, I'll never see any kind of furtherance of any career. Graduates are ten a penny these days and they aren't going to pay for any degree course when they can hire a graduate and just give then the specific training they need.

Option 4. Keep things as they are. Keep Job B and keep Job A as a zero hours 'thing', hoping that if the 'as and when required' shifts are arranged in advance, I can take the evening off or leave early.

This would require all the training that Option 1 also needs but the training would be mornings only (on my own time) or when I could fit it in on the shifts I'd be working there.

The new software goes live some time next year and all the shifts arranged so far fall before the 'go live' date.

I'm torn between Option 2 and Option 4.

I've got to give the boss In Job A an answer on Tuesday morning.

WWYD?